BUG Network Status

[johnhc]

mgancarz, OK, thanks. After lunch I will try with your Last Session, although I am running XP x64 (based on Server 2003), so my results may not apply. What is your source CD - OEM, Retail, Recovery, etc? Enjoy, John.

[mgancarz]

mgancarz, OK, thanks. After lunch I will try with your Last Session, although I am running XP x64 (based on Server 2003), so my results may not apply. What is your source CD - OEM, Retail, Recovery, etc? Enjoy, John.

source is Open volume license distribution disk.. ie: OEM pretty much

Further testing shows something strange.. I've disabled all the tweaks and even prevented nLite from performing any sort of tweaking by outright removing the nlite.inf file from the ISO. Performed the re-install and the bug still occurs even though nlite.inf clearly did not run since it was giving me errors about not being able to find it.

I'm going to create another version, with every tweak unselected, but the tweak section still highlighted. Will let you know how that goes.

*Update: It seems that works. Will keep testing further.

Edited February 18, 2009 by mgancarz

[johnhc]

mgancarz, I guess it makes no sense for me to try your Last Session at this time. Some time ago I tried to isolate all the files that nLite modified and came up with the attached screen shot. I am not sure it is exhaustive, but there are many. The two Hivexxx.inf files are interesting and contain nLite changes. Post a Windows Explorer screen shot of your source CD folder. Please let me know what you learn. Enjoy, John.

Edited February 18, 2009 by johnhc

[mgancarz]

mgancarz, I guess it makes no sense for me to try your Last Session at this time. Some time ago I tried to isolate all the files that nLite modified and came up with the attached screen shot. I am not sure it is exhaustive, but there are many. The two Hivexxx.inf files are interesting and contain nLite changes. Post a Windows Explorer screen shot of your source CD folder. Please let me know what you learn. Enjoy, John.

I don't see any attachment....?

[mgancarz]

Here is mine:

[johnhc]

mgancarz, your list is bigger than mine! I guess you did a better job than I. Thanks, John.

[mgancarz]

mgancarz, your list is bigger than mine! I guess you did a better job than I. Thanks, John.

I'm not actually sure if those are all the files nLite modifies. It's just the ones it modified in the I386 directory, starting at WINNT.SIF and going down. The other ones above it you can ignore, since it's just sorted by date modified.

I'm slowly making my way through the tweaks, I've identified that these are safe now:

Network-Disable automatic search for network folders and printers

Network-Disable Simple File Sharing

Security-Disable Firewall notification

Security-Screensaver Password-Protection-Enabled

Start Menu-Add Administrative Tools menu

Start Menu-Control Panel-Display as a link

Start Menu-Printers and Faxes-Display as a link

Start Menu-Remove Search For People from Search

Start Menu-Remove Search the Internet from Search

Start Menu-Remove Windows Catalog shortcut

Taskbar-Disable Hide inactive icons

Taskbar-Disable Language-Bar

Taskbar-Disable Windows Tour popup

Taskbar-Lock the Taskbar-No

Windows Media Player-Accept Privacy Statement

Windows Media Player-No visualization

while something in these causes the bug:

Boot and Shutdown-Ctrl-Alt-Del at logon-Enabled

Boot and Shutdown-Disable automatic restart on System Failure

Boot and Shutdown-Logon Page-Classic

Boot and Shutdown-Status Messages-Extended

Desktop-Internet Explorer icon-Show

Desktop-My Computer icon-Show

Desktop-My Documents icon-Show

Desktop-My Network Places icon-Hide

Desktop-Recycle Bin icon-Show

Desktop-Wrap icon titles-Enable

Explorer-Associate additional file types with Notepad

Explorer-Change Windows Explorer folder view-Details

Explorer-Classic Control Panel

Explorer-Display the contents of system folders

Explorer-Launch folder windows in a separate process

Explorer-Restore previous folder windows at logon

Explorer-Show extensions of known file-types

Explorer-Show hidden files and folders

Explorer-Show protected operating system files

Explorer-Show Statusbar in all windows

Explorer-Show the full path in the Address Bar

Explorer-Show the full path in the Title Bar

Internet Explorer-Disable Market Place bookmark

Internet Explorer-Disable Outlook Express link creation

Internet Explorer-Keep IE URL-History for-5 Days

Internet Explorer-Set Homepage-about:blank

Internet Explorer-Set IE-Cache limit to-8 MB

My Computer-Remove Shared Documents

Just splitting them in half and creating a CD, installing and testing to narrow it down now.

[johnhc]

mgancarz, I took the second half of your Tweaks list and replaced mine with it, created an ISO and installed it. I do not have any kind of problem as far as I can tell. Of course, I am running XP x64, which is a different animal. Please keep us informed. Thanks, John.

[mgancarz]

mgancarz, I took the second half of your Tweaks list and replaced mine with it, created an ISO and installed it. I do not have any kind of problem as far as I can tell. Of course, I am running XP x64, which is a different animal. Please keep us informed. Thanks, John.

I've narrowed it down to this tweak:

Explorer-Launch folder windows in a separate process

Clean Windows XP SP2, nothing selected but this tweak and the unattended settings.

LAST_SESSION.INI

I'm curious if someone has the time and a Windows XP SP2 CD if they could try this tweak as well and let me know if the bug occurs for them as well? IE: Open Control Panel -> Network Connections -> Double click on a network connection and see if Status opens or not.

I have confirmed that the attached last_session.ini generates the bug, both on a Dell desktop and in a VMWare Workstation VM.

[johnhc]

mgancarz, thanks to your persistence, I have recreated your bug on my XP x64 system under VMware Server. The first two times I ran with my original Last Session with all the Tweaks removed but the one (Explorer-Launch folder windows in a separate process), I got an error message from nLite about an unexpected hot fix with module nlsdl.exe (I think). The error occurred at the end on IE7 integration or beginning of the next hot fix. I installed the second and it had the problem you describe. I made a screen shot of the error message but accidentally deleted it and could not recover it and when I ran the same Last Session I could not recreate the error message but when installed I could not get a connection status without using the tray icon. I am still working and thinking, but ultimately it seems that nuhi will need to get involved. I let you know what I learn. Thanks, John.

[mgancarz]

Great to hear that you managed to re-create and it's not just a freak occurence or something wrong with my source. Thank you for the suggestions and the time taken to reproduce it.

I never got any error message from nLite during integration when testing for this bug, so that may be unrelated.

[johnhc]

mgancarz, I am wondering if your missing hot fixes (KB938127 and KB956391, after install, though in Update Pack) are a symptom of this problem. If possible, I hope you will run an experiment with your preset containing all you changes except remove the problem Tweak (Explorer-Launch folder windows in a separate process). Please let us know the results. Thanks, John.

[mgancarz]

mgancarz, I am wondering if your missing hot fixes (KB938127 and KB956391, after install, though in Update Pack) are a symptom of this problem. If possible, I hope you will run an experiment with your preset containing all you changes except remove the problem Tweak (Explorer-Launch folder windows in a separate process). Please let us know the results. Thanks, John.

Sorry, wasn't clear on it, but yes, my preset containing all my changes except removing the problem Tweak works fine.

For KB938127 and KB956391, they are both IE updates. I install the Hotfix pack first, then I install IE7, so it makes sense that I would need to re-include the updates for IE7.

I might change the order around to be IE7 then the hotfix pack and see the result.

[mgancarz]

Update on this, It looks like this is a bug in Windows itself?!

I did a new install of Windows x64 recently, not touched with nlite at all. Out of curiosity I set the 'Launch folder windows in seperate process' while setting my folder options, and tested the network connection, and BAM, same thing.

So nLite is not doing anything wrong, it windows that has the actual bug with using this setting.

[johnhc]

mgancarz, thanks for the report. I too, tried it with the same results as you. When I unchecked the option, everything returned to normal. I will update the thread I started and sent to nuhi. Thanks, John.